by Anne Perry
At first he did not mention her death to Ballarat, sure that he would dismiss it as the Yorks’ misfortune and no business of Pitt’s. And he did not want to run the risk that Ballarat would actually forbid him to look into it.
But as he thought more and more about the woman in cerise, Pitt became convinced he must pursue her identity before he could give any answer to the Foreign Office regarding Veronica York’s reputation, and her suitability to marry a rising diplomat, his determination to keep quiet weakened.
When Ballarat sent for him two days later he was caught mentally on the wrong foot.
“Well, Pitt, you don’t seem to have accomplished much in the York case,” Ballarat began critically. He was standing by the fire, warming the backs of his legs. A malodorous cigar burned in the stone ashtray on his desk. There was a small bronze lion beside it, rampant, one paw in the air.
Pretentious ass! Pitt thought angrily. “I was doing quite well until my principal witness was killed!” he said aloud, and instantly knew he had been unwise.
Ballarat’s face darkened, the blood ruddying his cheeks. He rocked backwards and forwards on his feet very slightly, his hands behind his back. He blocked most of the heat from the rest of the room; with wet boots and trouser legs, Pitt would have welcomed the warmth.
“Witness to what, for heaven’s sake?” Ballarat demanded irritably. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve uncovered some scandal about the Yorks after all, and the man who might have betrayed them has died?”
“No I’m not!” Pitt retorted. “I’m talking about murder. It’s none of the police’s business if they all had lovers; that’s their own affair. But Robert York’s death was murder, and that was our responsibility to clear up, and we haven’t yet.”
“For heaven’s sake, man!” Ballarat interrupted him. “That was three years ago, and we did our best. Some thief broke in and poor York caught him in the act. The wretch will have disappeared into the slums he came from. He might even be dead himself by now. Your trouble is you’re not man enough to admit failure even when it’s obvious to everyone else.” He glared at Pitt, daring him to argue.
Pitt rose to the bait. “And if it was an inside job?” he said rashly. “A friend turned amateur thief, or someone in the house who was in debt and stealing. It wouldn’t be the first time. Or what if Veronica York had a lover, and it was he who murdered her husband? Do you want to know about that, or, assuming it was Julian Danver, would the Foreign Office rather we covered it up?”
A series of expressions chased over Ballarat’s face, first sheer horror, then anger and confusion, then fear, as he understood the full implications of the last possibility. He would be caught between two masters; the Foreign Office, who had ordered the inquiry, and the Home Office, who were in charge of the police and justice. Either one could easily ruin his career. He was furious with Pitt as the instigator of such a dilemma.
Pitt saw this as quickly as Ballarat and took a distinct and deep satisfaction from it, even as he realized that Ballarat would make him the butt of his otherwise impotent anger.
“Damn you, Pitt! You incompetent, interfering . . .” He searched for an adequate word, and failing to find it, began again. “You idiot! That’s a—a totally irresponsible suggestion, and the Yorks, not to mention the Danvers, will sue you for slander if you whisper one word of it to anyone!”
“Shall we decline the case?” Pitt asked sarcastically.
“Don’t be insolent!” Ballarat shouted. Then his duty towards the Home Office, who were, after all, his employers, reasserted itself. Ballarat controlled his temper with an effort. “What conceivable grounds have you for making such an appalling suggestion?”
This time Pitt was less prepared, and Ballarat saw the second of hesitation with victory in his eyes. His body relaxed slightly, becoming more jaunty, and he resumed rocking on the soles of his feet. Still he blocked the fire, glancing down at Pitt’s wet legs with satisfaction.
Pitt tried to organize his thoughts. His reply must be unassailable. “No fence in London has handled or seen any of the goods,” he began. “No thief in the area has heard of them or knows of any strangers working the patch, no one has seen anyone hiding up or running from a murder.” He saw Ballarat’s face hover between belief and disbelief. He was a climber, a currier of favor, and it was a long time since he had been personally involved in the investigation of a crime. But he was neither ignorant nor stupid, and although he profoundly disliked Pitt, deploring his manners and his social judgments, he respected his professional skill.
“The thief knew where to find a first edition among the other books in the library and yet has apparently not disposed of it, and he left all the silver in the dining room,” Pitt went on. “I’ve started looking in their social circle for anyone with debts.” He noticed Ballarat’s alarm with satisfaction. “Discreetly. And I’ve got someone inquiring into York’s own affairs,” he added spitefully. “But the curious circumstance I was investigating was the appearance in the small hours of the morning of a glamorous and furtive woman in a cerise gown—twice at least in the York house, prior to Robert York’s death, and also in the Danver house, again in the small hours of the morning, and again wearing a startling shade of cerise and apparently not wishing to be seen. The maid who described her at the Yorks fell out of a window to her death the day after she spoke to me.”
Ballarat stopped rocking and remained motionless, his round little eyes on Pitt’s face. “Veronica York?” he said slowly. “Wouldn’t this maid have recognized her?”
“I would have thought so,” Pitt agreed. “She was the lady’s maid. But people see what they expect to see, and it was only for a moment in the gaslight, and the woman was dressed entirely differently. From the slight description it could have easily been Veronica; same height and build, same coloring.”
“Damnation!” Ballarat swore furiously. “I suppose it couldn’t have been Robert York’s mistress, and Mrs. York knew nothing about her?”
“Possibly. But what was she doing in the Danver house?”
“Obvious—Danver’s sister!”
“She’s a loose woman?” Pitt raised his eyebrows. “Who goes in for married diplomats, first Robert York, now Felix Asherson?”
Ballarat scowled. “What about Felix Asherson? What has he to do with it?”
Pitt sighed. “Harriet Danver is in love with him. Don’t ask me how I know; I do. And I think it’s pretty unlikely she was the woman in cerise, but if she was, then the Foreign Office should know.”
“Damn it, Pitt! It could be this woman in cerise is just some daft relative who likes to dress up and creep about. Lots of families have their embarrassments; a damn nuisance, but no actual harm.”
“Of course,” Pitt agreed. “She may be just gently mad. Or she may be an expensive harlot who entertained Robert York, or conceivably his father”—he saw Ballarat’s face darken but he did not stop—“or Julian Danver, or Garrard Danver. And maybe Dulcie Mabbutt fell out of the window in a curiously timed domestic accident.” He held Ballarat’s eyes. “Or maybe the woman in cerise was a procurer or carrier of treason, a blackmailer or a lover, and she was working on Robert York before she either murdered him herself, or some of her colleagues did.”
“Good God—are you saying young Danver was her master?” Ballarat exploded.
“No.” For once Pitt could deny it honestly. “I don’t see why he should need to be. Isn’t he in the Foreign Office as well?”
“Another traitor?” Ballarat’s jaw set. His cigar was crumbling away to little rings of ash unnoticed.
“Maybe?”
“All right! All right!” Ballarat’s voice rose. “Find out who she was! The security of the empire may be involved. But if you want to keep your job, Pitt, be discreet. If you’re clumsy I can’t and won’t protect you. Do you understand me clearly?”
“Yes, thank you, sir,” Pitt said with open sarcasm. It was the first time he had called Ballarat sir in years; he had always managed to e
vade it without being downright rude.
“My pleasure, Pitt,” Ballarat replied, showing his teeth. “My pleasure!”
Pitt left the Bow Street station and stepped out into a pea soup fog feeling savage and determined. There was always Charlotte, and he would certainly rely upon her judgment as much as possible. He had to admit now that he was glad she had been able to connive an invitation to the Yorks’ and the Danvers’. At least she might give him an informed opinion of Veronica York’s character, and whether she had been devastated by her husband’s death or freed by it to marry Julian Danver. If the latter were true, then the woman had remarkable control to have waited a full three years and behaved throughout with such apparent decorum. Or had Julian insisted upon that, in order to keep his career? All the same, it was remarkable if there had been no indiscretion, no self-indulgence in all that time. Especially if Veronica had been the woman who dressed dramatically in cerise for her assignations.
Or perhaps she still did, and that had made waiting bearable for her.
The fog in the Strand was so thick he could not see across to the opposite pavement. It hung, thick and yellow-gray, full of the fumes from thousands of smoking chimneys, as the film suspended in the dampness rose up from the wide coils of the river that laced through the suburbs, past Chelsea, the Houses of Parliament, the Embankment, Wapping, and Limehouse, down to the Pool of London, Greenwich, and the Arsenal, and finally the estuary.
If Cerise, whoever she was, had dressed as glamorously as Dulcie said, then she had not done it merely to flit around landings in the middle of the night. She had gone out somewhere in public. It was a disguise, an alter ego for some woman who would be known in Society; or else she was a courtesan with whom neither the Yorks nor the Danvers would be seen by their own friends. So where would she have been able to meet her lovers?
He stood on the curb as carriages, hansoms, and carts clopped by him slowly in the yellow mist, looming suddenly and disappearing, swallowed up, the horses only dark shapes and muffled sounds. The road was slimy and more spattered with dung than usual. This was the sort of weather when crossing sweepers got knocked over, sometimes even killed. There was a one-legged sweeper in Piccadilly who had lost his limb that way.
Pitt knew there were hotels, restaurants, and theaters where such assignations could be kept, places where if a gentleman saw an acquaintance both men would have enough tact to overlook the meeting, neither wishing it referred to. These places were dotted round the borders of fashionable London, in the Haymarket, Leicester Square, Piccadilly. He knew where to find them and the touts and doormen to ask.
“Cabbie!” he shouted into the street, catching his breath as the fog threatened to choke him, making him cough. “Cabbie!”
A hansom slowed up and stopped, harness dripping, horse’s head down, driver’s voice disembodied in the gloom.
“Haymarket,” Pitt requested, and climbed in.
It was the following day, the fog still clamped heavily over the city, acrid in the throat, sharp to the nose, before he found his first success. He was in a private hotel a little off Jermyn Street near Piccadilly. The doorman was a richly mustached ex-soldier, with liberal ideas on morality and an injury from the Second Ashanti War which prevented him from doing any physical labor. He was also illiterate, which precluded any clerical work. He was quite amenable to answering Pitt’s questions, for a consideration. Ballarat had been very little help with information or influence, but he had given Pitt as much financial license as he could.
“You’re goin’ back a bit, guv,” the doorman said cheerfully. “But sure I remember ’er. Right ’andsome she was, an’ always wore them sort o’ colors. Looks wicked on most people, but suited ’er summink marvelous. Black ’air and dark eyes she ’ad, an’ graceful as a swan. Tall woman, not a lot o’ shape to ’er, but she ’ad summink special all the same.”
“What sort of something?” Pitt said curiously. He wanted to know what this man thought, his judgment; even with his limited vocabulary, his opinion would be worth a great deal. He knew street women, he watched them every night, and he saw their clients too. He would see them working and yet not be part of it. Few of them would fool him.
The man pulled a slight face as he considered. “Quality,” he said at last. “She ’ad a quality about ’er; never acted like she was ’ustling people, anxious like; it was always them as was after ’er; she didn’t give a cuss.” He shook his head. “It were more’n that, though. It were—it were like she were doin’ it fer fun. Yeah, that’s it—she ’ad fun! She never laughed, not out loud, she ’ad too much class for that. But she were laughing inside, like.”
“Did you ever talk to her?” Pitt pursued.
“Me?” He looked a little surprised. “No, I never did. She didn’t say a lot, and always spoke quiet like. Only saw ’er, oh, maybe ’alf a dozen times.”
“Can you remember who she was with?”
“Different blokes. Elegant—she liked ’em real elegant, didn’t like any scruff. And money o’ course, but then so do they all. No one without a bit o’ real money comes ’ere.” He gave a short laugh.
“Can you describe any of them?”
“Not so’s you’d know ’em again, no.” He smiled.
“Try a little,” Pitt pressed him.
“You couldn’t pay me that much, guv. You goin’ ter give me another job when they throw me out of ’ere an’ black me name?”
Pitt sighed. He had known before he started that describing the woman was very different from being indiscreet about her clients. Clients had money, position, they expected privacy and no doubt bought it for a generous price. Selling the secrets of one would lose the trust of all. “All right,” he conceded. “Be general. Old or young, dark, fair or gray, what sort of height and build?”
“Yer goin’ ter search all London, guv?”
“I can eliminate a few.”
The doorman shrugged. “If yer like. Well, those as I can recall was older, above forty. Don’t think she took ’em fer the money; dunno why, but I ’ad the feelin’ she could afford ter pick and choose.”
“Gray?”
“None I recalls. An’ none ’efty—all on the slim side.” He moved closer to Pitt. “Look, guv, for all I know it could ’ave bin the same gent. It don’t pay me ter peer into their faces! They comes ’ere discreet—that’s what they pays for! Like I said, she could afford ter pick. I always ’ad the feelin’ she was doin’ it fer fun.”
“Did she always wear that color?”
“Shades of it, yeah; it was like—’er trademark. Why you so keen ter know about ’er anyway? She ain’t bin ’ere in, oh, two or three years.”
“Which? Two, or three?”
“Well if yer want it that precise, guv, three, I reckon.”
“And you’ve not seen or heard of her since then?”
“Come ter think of it, no I ’aven’t.” His faced relaxed into a grin. “Maybe she married well. Sometimes they do. Maybe she’s a duchess sitting in some grand ’ouse by now, ordering around the likes o’ you an’ me.”
Pitt pulled a face. The chance was slight at best, and they both knew it; it was far more likely she had lost her looks by disease, or assault, in a fight with another prostitute or a pimp who felt he had been cheated, a lover whose demands had become too perverted or possessive; or that she had simply moved downmarket from a hotel such as this to a simple brothel. He did not mention the possibility of treason or murder; that would complicate the question unnecessarily.
The doorman looked at him closely. “Why you after ’er, guv? She puttin’ the black on someone?”
“It’s a possibility,” Pitt conceded. “It’s a definite possibility.” He took out one of his new cards and gave it to the man. “If you see her again, tell me. Bow Street Police Station. Just say you’ve seen Cerise again.”
“That ’er name? What’s it worth?”
“It’ll do. And it’s worth my goodwill—which, believe me, is a lot better than my ill w
ill.”
“You wouldn’t pick on me, just ’cause I ain’t seen someone! I can’t see ’er if she in’t ’ere! An’ you wouldn’t want lies, now, would yer?”
Pitt did not bother to answer. “What theaters and music halls do your clients patronize?”
“Geez!”
Pitt waited.
The man bit his lip. “Well, if ye’re after ’er yer call Cerise, I ’eard she bin ter the Lyceum, an’ I suppose she tried the ’alls, although don’t ask me which ones ’cause I dunno.”
Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “The Lyceum? A lady of courage to ply her trade there.”
“I told yer, she ’ad class.”
“Yes you did. Thank you.”
The man tipped his hat a little sarcastically. “Thank you, guv!”
Pitt left him and went out into the street again. The fog wrapped round him again like a cold muslin, damp and clinging to the skin.
So Cerise had both courage and style. She was certainly not Veronica York on a mere affair with Julian Danver! If it was Veronica, then she led a secret life of the sort to scandalize the Foreign Office to the core of its collective soul. For a diplomat to have a wife who was a practicing prostitute, of whatever price or degree of discrimination, was impossible. He would be dismissed instantly, and ruined.
Neither was she Harriet Danver pursuing her affair with Felix Asherson, although he had never actually thought that. Charlotte had said Harriet was in love; as yet he had no knowledge of whether Asherson returned her feelings. But either way, that answer offered no explanation as to why Cerise should be in the York house.
No, it seemed she was what he had first thought, a woman who used her beauty and unusual quality of allure to trap and then blackmail her Foreign Office lovers for the secrets of their work. Robert York had refused, either immediately or after some time, and as a result either she herself or perhaps her accomplices had had to murder him to avoid betrayal.
It was getting dark and the fog was beginning to freeze, the air filling with tiny pellets of ice, which sent shivers through him as they crept into the folds of his muffler and touched his skin. He began to walk briskly north into Regent Street, then turned left towards Oxford Circus. There were other people he could ask: upmarket prostitutes who would know the competition and be able to tell him more about Cerise, where she plied her trade, what clients she chose, whether she only picked men who were of use to her, and whether she was a real threat to the others by taking general business.